Replies to post #188694 on Verb Technology Company Inc (VERB)

[susa]

Big question is keeping costs down to one million a month. No room for error for CFO AND CEO. THESE TWO PEOPLE NEED TO BE VERY FRUGAL AND REBUILD SHARE HOLDER Value AND REGAIN SHAREHOLDER TRUST. ALL HANDS BETTER RACE AHEAD TO GET GREAT CLIENTS. POSSIBLITY OF SHAREHOLDERS HOLDING PLUS Adding TO POSITIONS IF RORY CAN BRING IN CONTRACTS. HERE IS HOPING

[jobynimble]

10-Q sounds hopeful? I read it differently…

[jobynimble]

Also, have you read the conference call transcript, including the Q&A? You should, if you haven’t, since it’s more of Rory’s wishful thinking…

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1566610/000149315222032948/ex99-2.htm

One example is Google integrating Microsoft Outlook, which isn’t working out so far…


Martin Saltzman

I appreciate that. I like your enthusiasm with that. Now, I’ve been getting calls ad nauseam, and I don’t know why people want to concentrate on it so much. But I am getting people asking me on the SaaS side of your business, back when maybe the first quarter you might have talked about Google and how they might integrate just like how Microsoft Outlook did. Can you comment at all on that?

Rory J. Cutaia

Yes. When we developed the integration with Microsoft Outlook, we’re pretty optimistic about it. Based upon that level of optimism and a lot of the development work that we’ve already done, which is still usable for Gmail, we have put plans in motion, in fact, have already begun a fair amount of development work, for the integration into Gmail. But as we move forward, we realized that the adoption rates that we thought we would get were not really as great in terms of materializing as we thought they could be.

We realized in order to make that happen, we’re going to need to spend quite a bit more money in marketing and promotion. Now, it was a great application. I think it had great implications. But this is around the time that we were getting ready to really pull the trigger and accelerate our development on MARKET and get it out into commercial use. To be perfectly honest, we have limited resources. We want to not get into the capital markets and just keep taking money. We want to be very judicious about what we’re going to spend money on.

I needed to make a choice. Should I spend more money in promoting and marketing outlook, and then presumably Gmail after that? Or, should I cut back on that and focus on what I believe, and certainly what our Board and the rest of our team here believes, that market would be a far greater value proposition, far greater value creation opportunity, than both Outlook and Google. So we had to cut back on that and focus accordingly. I hope that answers your question.

Martin Saltzman

Yes. No, it does. I respect that. Look, Google is a sexy name, you start saying you’re in bed with Google, it does mean a lot, but obviously, you’re spending the money, the way you feel it needs to be spent. I have to ask two more things. One here has to do with influencers and creators, okay? I guess what I’m trying to figure out is, creators are the people who make these products, and they have their followings. Are there any influencers that you are courting, or that are trying and looking to court you? I mean, have they heard about MARKET?

Rory J. Cutaia

Of course. Absolutely. You’ll see those beginning this month. Then, as they are getting ready to launch and do their shows, we’ll be promoting that. Of course, we are relying pretty extensively on the influencers and creators themselves promoting it. After all, we’re choosing them among all those that come in, and want to be honest, we’re choosing them based upon the size of their following, and their commitment, by the way, which is part of the agreement that they enter into with us, their commitment that they’re going to promote it, a certain number of times a week to their following, and that’s really kind of the big deal.

I think that’s something that, I think Brian Kinstlinger from AGP sort of alluded to in some of his questions before. Yes, we are counting very, very heavily on the creators and the influencers, and certainly the retailers, to promote this and, thereby, reduce the need for our own marketing budget to promote the growth of MARKET. I think that’s a really good point. I’m glad you gave me an opportunity to stress that.

[jobynimble]

Here’s more Rory-speak, aka deflection, answering but not giving an answer, imo, another one of many dangling carrots…


Martin Saltzman

No. Thank you. This is one that sort of is a newer thing. You have here on your bullet points on your release about this advisory group, Alantra, and I just started thinking myself, assist you in evaluating strategic opportunities. So I just had a thought, and you could tell me if I’m off base, or you can’t answer it, what have you.

Are you at all thinking about partnerships throughout the world, for instance, okay? Let’s say, you partner with somebody to market MARKET in Europe, or Africa, or the Middle East. In other words, just develop strategic partnerships, because maybe it’s too hard to do it all yourself, conquer the world yourself. Maybe there’s a way to do it, partnerships.

Rory J. Cutaia

Martin, I’m not sure that I could answer that without running afoul of the rules here. In any event, it would be premature. So, I’m sorry I can’t really provide more information than that. But I would tell you that, we have historically received all kinds of inbound inquiries for partnerships and other kinds of strategic relationships. Some of them, right out of the gate, don’t make any sense and they’re easy to just dismiss, and others require further thought analysis, consultation with the Board, and sometimes outside experts. More recently, there have been—there’s been reason to take some of these things much more seriously.

In so doing, bring in people that are experts far beyond my own expertise and that of our Board members or even as an enhancement to our respective expertise in these areas. So we held what is called a beauty (phon) contest, where you have a number of different bankers come to you and present their services. We did that. Presentations were made to the Board, and the Board selected Alantra, and we’ve engaged them and they are at work. I can’t unfortunately share anything more than that right now, but you know that as soon as I can, I absolutely will.

Martin Saltzman

I understand. Yes, certainly, you don’t want to compromise you or anybody else. I don’t think I have any other questions for today. I noticed on your MARKET site, your platform, you have the seller list back up there, which is, I think, very important for people to see who is a vendor. I appreciate that. So thank you for doing that, and I wish you all the best in the holiday shopping season.

Rory J. Cutaia

Thank you, Martin.

I do want to just respond to that last point you made about the sales thing, because we took that off because we had made some updates to the site and then you’re able to go to a different area of the navigation bar and see all of that information. So it wasn’t that you couldn’t see it.

I think, we put it where it belongs on other kinds of e-commerce sites, typical. However, we did get a fair amount of feedback about that. I want to credit our team here that, what you people say and the kinds of comments or criticism that come in, matters to us.